Welcome Home, or, Not Even A Nun Would Bat An Eyelid
by jayjaybee
Summary: Patsy and Delia settle into their new home, with a little help from their friends. This fic is in denial about what happened in the second half of 4.08: it pretends Delia got to work safely, got home safely, and they all lived happily ever after. Unabashed fluff, essentially.
1. Mrs B

"That," Patsy says as she returns to the living room, "is not unlike being visited by the queen."

"The queen?"

"The queen."

"And the queen's known for bringing cake round to people's houses, is she?" Delia sweeps up a few stray crumbs from a saucer with a finger. "It's very good sponge, actually..."

"I thought you didn't like cake." Coming to sit on the arm of Delia's chair, Patsy gives her the pushing-one's-luck grin that goes with a joke invoked too many times.

"You're so funny, Pats." For a moment, Delia allows herself to be mollified with a kiss. Then, "I don't think the queen'd be looking at someone's kitchen with _that_ level of scrutiny, though. I don't think the queen's quite so interested in other people's pots and pans. When we decided to move in together, I don't think I quite realized that it'd involve being inspected by your former housekeeper."

"Love me, love Mrs B."

"She was checking up on you. Us. Me. I don't think she thinks you can look after yourself, you know. She doesn't think you can cook."

"She might not be wrong. But now she knows I've got you to run round after me and take care of my every need."

"Pats. Firstly, I don't think that's how it's going to work, and secondly, even if it was, I don't think she thinks I can cook, either. I'm not sure I want to be judged in my own home like that. Judged and found wanting. I don't want people to think we can't be proper!"

"She wasn't judging us. You. Us. Well, she was, but that's just Mrs B. No-one lives up to her standards. And it just means she'll send me home with food parcels."

"She better not." Delia looks at her darkly.

"So you don't want me to bring any more cake home, then?"

Delia opens her mouth, closes it again. Sighs. "Well, if you put it like that..."

* * *

Mrs. B wasn't the first who came to check up on them, in those early weeks in their new flat. She wasn't the last, either.


	2. Fred

Delia fills the kettle, puts it on the hob and ferrets in the cupboard for mugs. She pulls out three: the one she's designated as Patsy's, the one she's claimed as her own, and one of the spares.

"I could have done that, you know." Patsy's forehead is against the window pane, and she's looking down into the yard three storeys below.

"I know," Delia agrees. She picks up the biscuit jar, unscrews the lid and peers in. A better idea strikes, though, and with its lid back on the jar goes back on the shelf so she can pick up the cake tin instead.

"I could," Patsy insists.

"I think it's sweet. He's fond of you."

"Fred?" Patsy looks at her, incredulous, as if the idea hasn't really occurred to her before.

Delia nods, crosses the room. "They all are, your Nonnatus lot." She leans her head on Patsy's shoulder and looks down to see Fred's progress on the little lean-to bike shed he's insisted on making for them. "And - um - I'm not sure you could, actually. Do that, I mean."

Fred's wrestling awkwardly with the frame he's made, trying to squeeze it into a corner of the yard that's probably not big enough for it.

Delia winces as it gets a bit too close to the window frame. "The paintwork..."

They hold their breath for a moment. Delia's spent the morning in rather delicate negotiations with their landlady in order to get permission for this mini-outbuilding that Fred's imposed on them, with the upshot being that the importance of not making any lasting alterations - or doing any material damage to the building - had been firmly insisted upon.

Boiling on the hob, the kettle whistles. Luckily, really, because it means Delia goes back to making the tea, and consequently she's not watching as Fred wallops the wooden construction into place with no little subtlety and scattering not a few fragments of brick, wood, and paint.

* * *

With a careful elbow, Patsy nudges the back door handle, then hooks her foot round the door to open it.

"Tea's up, Fred."

"Nurse Mount, you're a mind reader."

Patsy shakes her head. "Not me - all Delia's idea. I'm just the waitress."

"Good teamwork, then."

There's nowhere for the tray to go, so Patsy puts it on the floor, passes Fred his mug and a saucer with cake on, then takes her own. She sits on the doorstep while he perches on the lid of the bin.

"You're settling in ok, you girls?" Sipping his tea he nods his head upwards, towards the window of their flat that looks out over the yard. There's something protective, fatherly, concerned, in the way he's watching her.

Patsy can't fight the urge to look away, to look down, to look anywhere but at him. She's looking into her tea as she nods and smiles, to herself as much as to him. "Yes. We are." She can't say more. It means too much to her.

What Fred understands by what she says, or what she does, she doesn't know. She doesn't really want to think about it. But it's ok, because somehow, Fred does the right thing, and changes the subject, and so they're chatting about the cubs and the scouts and the next district jamboree, and the merits of Mrs B's Victoria sponge, and how unseasonably warm it is for November, and when, if Patsy and Delia are really thinking about getting a window box, they should think about planting it up.

They're finishing their tea when the door that Patsy's been leaning on swings away from her, and she feels Delia's hand on her shoulder.

"Nurse Busby," Fred's on his feet. "What do you think? Just in time to try it out!"

So small is the yard that their bikes - Patsy's one from work, and the slightly smaller one that's Delia's new pride and joy - have had to be consigned to the alley way beyond the yard while Fred's carpentry's been in progress. They take turns wheeling them in, first Patsy and then Delia.

Fred watches over them, squinting at the manouvering, at the snug - tight, even - fit.

"Ok, ok," he mutters, gets them to wheel the bikes out again. "A few adjustments here and there. Leave me to it, and I'll be done in a jiffy."

* * *

Half an hour later, there's a tap on the door. Patsy goes to answer it, to let Fred in, but he's not stopping, he says, since Violet'll be expecting him home. He's just come up to let them know he's finished, that the bikes fit perfectly now, they'll be safe out of the rain and ever so easy to get in and out.

Delia joins Patsy at the door to thank him.

Fred waves away their gratitude, muttering something about how maintaining the Nonnatus bicycle fleet is one of his key duties, that prevention is better than cure when it comes to vehicular repair, and its no less, really, than he ought to have done. But they all know that today's his day off and the reasons he gives don't tell the real story at all.

Satisfied at a job well done, Fred goes home.


	3. Sister Mary Cynthia

If what had just happened had happened five minutes earlier, Patsy reflects, then she, quite literally, wouldn't be in the mess in which she now finds herself. If it had happened five minutes earlier, she'd've been still covered head-to-toe in regulation coveralls - never flattering, but always functional, a barrier designed to repel all kinds of bodily fluids and god knows what else.

But with Mrs Bennett safely delivered of both a healthy daughter and its accompanying placenta, with Sister Mary Cynthia conscientiously and carefully filling in the paperwork, and with the Bennett house ringing with joy because of the new arrival, she'd just stepped out of the protective white suit. And, fate being what it was, that was the moment that Mrs Bennett's mother, keen to get a cuddle with her new grandchild, had invited Patsy to take hold of the new arrival's elder sibling for a moment or two. Since little Mary Bennett had been one of the first babies Patsy had delivered when she'd arrived in Poplar, she'd been only too happy to oblige. Happy, at least, until the toddler greeted the woman who'd welcomed her into the world with a hiccup and then a torrent of rainbow-coloured vomit, vomit which had liberally doused Patsy's unoveralled self.

After an initial moment of shock, Mrs Bennett's mother is, of course mortified. Whatever it is that she's been feeding the child to pacify it in the absence of its mother has clearly not agreed with it, and the result is surprisingly multicoloured and has an astonishingly vile smell. And while Sister Mary Cynthia tries to reassure little Mary, Mary's grandmother runs to grab those clean towels that haven't been deployed during labour to try to soak up the worst of what's now dripping down, and seeping through, Patsy's uniform.

As Patsy tries to pat herself down with the towels, Mrs Bennett's mother rushes about, digging in wardrobes for a change of clothes for her. But Mrs Bennett is a tiny woman and the blouses, skirts and dresses that her mother picks out would be absurdly tight on Patsy. Patsy considers, for a moment, proposing that she borrow a shirt and a pair of trousers from Mr Bennett, but decides against it. It probably wouldn't be proper.

Patsy resigns herself to being stuck in the uniform until she can get back to Nonnatus to change. It's incredibly unpleasant but after years in the job she's got a strong stomach, and she thinks she can probably manage the twenty-five minute cycle ride without being moved to nausea herself.

But then she has a better idea.

* * *

It takes them less than five minutes to get from the Bennett house to her flat. Ever cautious, as the plan had struck her, she'd suggested to Sister Mary Cynthia that she might head back to Nonnatus without her, to get a head start on filing the paperwork and to get a bit of lunch before the next job came in. But becoming a nun doesn't seem to have curbed Sister Mary Cynthia's quiet interest in her friends' lives, and - since she's not been to the flat before - it becomes clear to Patsy that she wouldn't mind an invitation to come and visit, however briefly.

And so, as Patsy puts the key in the lock, she has a momentary flash of hope that Delia - whose day off it is - might be out, shopping or visiting friends. It'd just be easier, less awkward, Patsy thinks, if Delia's not there, since if she's not there, they won't be forced to pretend their relationship is something other than it is.

But as she pushes the door open, there's no doubt that Delia's home. The new wireless that they acquired at the weekend is playing almost-but-not-quite full blast, and Delia's singing along, almost-but-not-quite in tune. Patsy's heart leaps. The next quarter of an hour or so may be awkward, she thinks, but really, she's astounded at herself that she thought she might feel better if Delia were not there.

She invites Sister Mary Cynthia to follow her in, and heads down the hallway.

"Deels, it's only me," she calls, pushing open the living room door.

Delia's perched on the top of a stepladder, paintbrush in hand, hair swept up in a headscarf, the wall next to her painted half-yellow, herself also bespattered half-yellow.

"Pats!" Delia's clearly delighted to see her. "Did you miss me so much you've decided to bunk off work?" As Patsy comes into the room, Delia's eyes catch almost involuntarily at the uniform buttons that Patsy - desperate to get out of her stinking outfit - has already undone, before she notices two things: firstly, the grey-green damp smear that's spread down Patsy's torso; and secondly, the impassive look on Patsy's face. This is enough to stop her flirtation midtrack - for which Patsy is grateful - and as Sister Mary Cynthia is right behind her, Delia soon clocks on to the situation.

"Oh, hello Sister," Delia's bright welcome is warm enough, Patsy hopes, to dispel any awkwardness. "Have you come to have a look at the mess I'm making?"

* * *

While she goes to change Patsy leaves Sister Mary Cynthia to fill Delia in on the chain of events that's brought them to this particular juncture. When she returns, Sister Mary Cynthia is sitting at the table, hands wrapped round a steaming mug of coffee, while Delia sits on the bottom step of the ladder. They've moved on from talking about vomiting children to chatting amiably about colour schemes and curtains.

"Coffee's in the pot, Pats, if you want some."

Patsy nods and goes to pour some into a mug but says "We better be heading back to Nonnatus in a minute."

"Yes," Sister Mary Cynthia agrees. "Although, do you mind if I use your bathroom first?"

When Patsy returns from showing her the way, Delia's fiddling with her paintbrushes. "Well, what do you think?" Delia asks, stepping back from the wall to scrutinize her half-finished work. "I wanted to have it finished before you got home..."

Even with paint splattered haphazardly across her face, Patsy thinks, Delia's perfect. "Very pretty," Patsy replies, ducking her head to kiss her gently.

"I meant the wall, Pats," Delia protests, but she kisses her back all the same. Then she sniffs at Patsy. "I think I can still smell it on you, you know."

Patsy sniffs herself. "No, you can't." Patsy sniffs again, doubtfully. "You can't, can you?"

* * *

When they arrive back at Nonnatus - Patsy holding the bag containing her to-be-boil-washed uniform at arms length - Sister Mary Cynthia stops her on the steps.

"Did you help Delia with the painting?" she asks, eyelids not batting at all. "I think you've managed to get some of that yellow on your face. Maybe you should try to wash that off before Nurse Crane catches up with you?"


	4. Chummy

It's such a luxury, Patsy thinks, looking round the bright and comfortable room, to have a home of one's own. Not just a temporary lodging, or a bed in a shared room in a convent, but an actual home. A place to settle in to, a place to imprint one's self on. A place to love and be loved in. The living room is, she thinks, shaping up rather nicely, much of it Delia's work rather than her own. From painting the walls to sourcing battered but cheap and surprisingly comfortable chairs, the absolute joy that Delia finds in designing their home means Patsy's been happy to let her take charge of most it, but there are a few things for which Patsy has her own plans - plans that she's keeping a surprise.

With Delia not due home for another hour or so, Patsy settles down into one of those surprisingly comfortable chairs, with a mug of tea, a chocolate biscuit, and a detective novel (one of Delia's library books, which Patsy picked up two days ago to poke fun at and has struggled to put down since). She casts a slightly rueful glance in the direction of the small kitchen. Cooking remains something of an adventure and not always a pleasant one. They're muddling through, getting better - so they keep telling themselves, and the fact that they've had fewer emergency trips to the chippy in the last week or so would also suggest that - but it's far from being a task that fills her with confidence yet.

But the battle with pots and pans doesn't need to commence just yet, and in the meantime, Patsy opens her book and calculates how much she's got left. Not much: there's a reasonable chance she might finish it before she has to make dinner, and so she can free herself from this ridiculous feeling of being in thrall to a heart-stopping fictional narrative.

She shifts slightly to get comfortable, takes a sip of tea, a bite of biscuit - and then the doorbell rings.

Rather reluctantly, Patsy heaves herself up and trots down the hallway. She opens the door to a familiar figure.

"What ho, old thing - I know you said you'd do it yourself but we were in the area, passing by, and I thought I'd save you a job, pop in and measure up. It'll mean I can drop by Mrs Buckle's after work tomorrow and pick up the fabric."

Patsy's face is blank - not because she doesn't know what Chummy's talking about, but because she does.

"For the curtains?" Chummy prompts.

Patsy nods, feigns remembering, and wonders how she's going to get out of this particular mess.

* * *

The plan for the curtains had come to her just a few days earlier. They'd taken advantage of a shared Sunday off together to linger in bed longer than usual and, while Delia dozed next to her, Patsy occupied herself with watching the wintery sunlight creep across the pillow towards her lover, admiring the different colours that it brought out in her hair, the semi-translucent freckles that it illuminated, and then - as it reached her eyelids, how it woke her up.

The light that diffused through the thin curtains did have some uses then, but, Patsy had reflected later, they weren't the most practical curtains, particularly if one was trying to sleep in the daytime, as nurses on nightshift were wont to do. And this was an issue that was suddenly pressing on her mind, because Delia had come home the night before with some unwelcome news. With a colleague on sick leave following a car accident, the nightshift rotas had been rearranged, and her turn had come around rather sooner than she'd been expecting.

("...and I'd just got used to sharing a bed with you and now I'll be on my own again!"

"You say "got used" as if it's been a terrible chore."

"Oh, it has! What with the way you steal the covers. And how you snore."

"I do not do either of those things."

"You so do."

"That's slander. It won't stand up in court. There's no proof. Trixie never complained."

"Trixie never complained about you stealing her blankets? I knew you two shared a room, but I didn't realize you were quite that close, Pats," Delia had said drily.

"If you keep on like this I might start looking forward to you being on nights and having all the bed to myself. At least I won't be tormented by you then."

"It'll only be for two weeks."

"Two weeks?" Patsy had sobered. "That's long enough.")

And so, a plan had started to form in Patsy's head. If they were to be forced to spend their nights apart, she at least wanted to try to make Delia's days as comfortable as they could be. And consequently, when she'd seen her at Nonnatus on Monday lunchtime, Patsy had enlisted Chummy's help.

* * *

Unfortunately, right now that isn't looking like the best idea Patsy has ever had, but before she can react Chummy has thrust Freddie upon her so she has both hands free to root round in her enormous handbag for her tape measure.

"Now, where's that window?"

The warm bubble of homely comfort that Patsy'd been in just a few minutes earlier is thoroughly popped as she leads Chummy into the living room, offers her tea, Freddie milk, both of them biscuits, in an attempt to stall, in the hope that if she buys herself some time she'll come up with a plan of some description which means the truth of her relationship with Delia isn't made blatantly obvious.

But - biscuit for Freddie aside - her offers of hospitality are refused.

"Can't stay, old thing - just a quick in and out - we need to get home, because young Sir'll be wanting his dinner," Chummy says, looking at the way her son's devouring the biscuit Patsy's handed him. "Show me to the window, and I'll be out of your hair in no time."

Patsy blinks, flounders. There's no way out of this.

She leads Chummy down the hallway, offering up a desperate prayer that Chummy's too posh, or too polite, or too shortsighted, or too unobservant to notice the two glaringly obvious facts about the room they're about to enter.

The first of these facts is that it is, unmistakably, a room in which two people sleep - in which two women sleep. There are two dressing gowns hung on the back of the door, two bedside tables (one with a neat arrangement of photos and nicknacks, the other with an alarm clock, an ash tray and a novel) and two sets of cosmetics on the dressing table.

The second of these facts is that there is, unmistakably, only one bed.

Pushing open the door, Patsy kicks herself for not having measured up earlier. And then she realizes: Chummy doesn't know that she hasn't already done the measuring. Patsy stops, pulls closed the door she's just half-opened, and spins to face her friend.

"Wait - I forgot - I've already done the measurements."

Chummy looks at her, confused, but Patsy leads her back to the living room, where she makes a show of looking for a notebook, for anything that she can plausibly claim to have written measurements in or on.

Chummy hovers on the threshold, doubtfully. "It won't take a minute to measure it again," she says.

"No, wait - here it is." Patsy grabs at Delia's library book, at the scrap of paper inside it. "I was using it as a bookmark." She pretends to read the measurements from it, overestimating (she hopes) significantly. It'll cost her more in fabric than she'd banked on (even if Mrs Buckle's offering her a deal on the lining) but it'll save their skins, temporarily.

Chummy conscientiously notes down the measurements Patsy gives her and promises to drop by Mrs Buckle's shop and pick up the fabric so that it'll be ready for when Patsy comes round on Wednesday evening to help Chummy make up the curtains on her sewing machine.

Patsy distracts herself from the guilt she feels at lying to her friend by making funny faces at Freddie and handing him another chocolate biscuit. It's been an unpleasant few minutes, but she waves Chummy off she heaves a sigh of relief.

Then she hunts in the living room sideboard for the tape measure, and heads to the bedroom. Her estimation wasn't too wildly out, she's relieved to find. She carefully notes down the right figures, so she can let Chummy have them when she goes round on Wednesday; she'll blame a wonky tape measure, or a faulty memory, or indecipherable handwriting. It'll be another little lie, but it's one she needs to make.

* * *

"Of all the meals we've had here, this is, perhaps, the oddest," Delia observes.

"Poached eggs on toast? What's odd about that? They're not so bad, are they?" Patsy stabs at the egg white with a fork.

"It's not what we're eating that's odd, so much as what meal we're having." Delia can see that Patsy doesn't follow. "What I'm trying to say is that, effectively, you're having dinner and I'm having breakfast."

"Alas."

"Yes, alas. Your surprise curtains worked, though."

"Did they?"

"Not a chink of sunlight all day. I slept like a log. Although the fact that you weren't there to snore or steal the blankets might have contributed to that."

"Honestly, of all the cheek...!"


	5. Nurse Crane

It's just after four o'clock and - give or take the chronic snorers, the odd cough, splutter, and wheeze and the distant echo of shoes on parquet floor - all is quiet on the ward when Delia notices that it's snowing. With a burst of childlike excitement she heads to the window, ignoring the disapproval directed at her by Nurse Cartwright from the other end of the room. On tiptoes, she peers out of the high window to see if it's sticking. It is, just.

Snow brings both a thrill of excitement and an ache of nostalgia for the winters of her childhood. In Wales, when the snow came, it stayed put; it drifted and blocked roads; it brought days of staying home from school, of playing with the other kids in the village; it meant snowmen and snowfights in the great white expanse.

London snow never stays pristine for long; London snow never stays for long full-stop.

But while London sleeps, the snow falls.

* * *

As London wakes, the snow is still falling.

With her shift at an end, Delia's starting to be rather less thrilled by the snow. It's stuck alright, and there's now a couple of inches on the floor. Flurries are still drifting down gently but persistently, and as she leaves the hospital she turns up her collar, wishing that she'd stolen Patsy's scarf to keep herself warm, to keep the snow from creeping down her neck.

She wheels her bike out from the rack, dusting the snow off its seat, but then stops to weigh up her options. The snow's already thick enough to blur the edges of kerbs, making it difficult to tell where pavement ends and road begins, and Delia is, she finds, a bit nervous of that; and that's not to mention the falling-snow-in-eyeball-while-travelling-at-speed problem. And yet she doesn't fancy the walk home either; her thin shoes have been quickly overwhelmed with snow, and it's a good half-hour's tramp back to the flat.

Yes, right now she's feeling rather less than thrilled by the snow.

"Nurse Busby, it is you. I thought it was."

Delia spins. "Oh, Hello, Nurse Crane," she says. (It's only when she sees Nurse Crane wince, that she remembers Patsy retelling Barbara's story of her first encounter with her.)

Infringed etiquette not withstanding, it appears that Nurse Crane, car keys in hand, is the fairy godmother Delia hadn't quite known she'd been wishing for. "Would you like a lift in my car?" Nurse Crane gestures towards the end of the street where the car is parked.

Delia takes barely a moment to consider. "Really? That would be very kind of you! Let me just put this thing back in the bike rack..."

Nurse Crane looks at the bike, squints in the distance towards her car, looks at the bike again. "No need. It'll fit in the car, I'm sure of it."

A few minutes later, and that assessment seems to have been ever-so-slightly over-optimistic. Delia's about ready to admit defeat but, it turns out, Nurse Crane isn't a woman to give up easily. She retrieves a spanner from the toolbox in the boot of the car, and before Delia can react the bike's front wheel is off, and the bike now fits, its now-detatched wheel wedged in in the well behind the passenger seat.

Delia's stunned, impressed, stutters her thanks, and silently wonders if her bike'll ever go back together again, but Nurse Crane's already urging her to get in the car, out of the snow, so they can go home. Delia gets in, and, after she's swept the worst of the snow off the windscreen, Nurse Crane joins her.

The snow continues to fall, Nurse Crane peering out, the windscreen wiper flailing backwards and forwards, catching and smearing at the snow. The world's waking up, coming to life, but the streets are still quiet and much of their snow is still untrodden.

As they set off, Nurse Crane explains what's brought her to the hospital so early: a labour with complications, and Doctor Turner and the ambulance called; a husband frantic with worry, desperate to be with his wife, and yet the snow making it difficult for him to get to the hospital. As Nurse Crane explains that the only thing to do was to drive him in herself, Delia's both surprised and not-surprised at the act of kindness; it's a glimpse at the same brusque generosity which has led to her now being ensconced in a warm(ish) car with her bike (in pieces) on the back seat.

The snow drifting down means the journey is longer, slower than it normally would be, and they fall into routine nursing chitchat, each, perhaps, a little nervous of the other's company. Delia mentions a case or two that they've got in the ward at the moment, and Nurse Crane, of course, has Opinions. Delia can see the merit in some of these Opinions, has reservations about others, but after a long shift she's tired, and decides it's a battle she doesn't want to fight. So after some conciliatory words, she fishes for something else to say, for safer territory, for a way of redirecting conversation, and flailing rather, ends up complimenting Nurse Crane on her car.

This, it seems, is a fruitful topic.

Nurse Crane graciously accepts the compliment on her car's behalf, and launches into an account of its merits, on the freedom it affords her, explaining how it helps her with work but also gives her a mobility outside of work, telling Delia how just the other weekend she went on a country run and how good it was to get out of the city even for a few hours.

Delia makes the right kind of encouraging noises to support Nurse Crane in her enthusing, but it's not long before she's daydreaming about her and Patsy getting a car of their own, of being able, whenever they like, to escape to the countryside or to the seaside or even to Wales...she imagines the pair of them barrelling along country lanes in a stylish Mini-minor, laughing and chatting, revisiting her childhood haunts, finding secluded campsites to pitch a tent...

And then Nurse Crane punctures Delia's fantasy. "Do you drive?" she asks.

"No, I've never learned," Delia has to admit, somewhat regretfully.

"Oh, but you should. It'd offer you such possibilities."

Her daydream having barely faded, Delia can only agree. But brought back down to earth by practicalities, she says, "I don't think we could afford a car, not right now. Maybe one day, if we saved up."

It's only once Delia's spoken that she realizes she's forgotten to police her language, that she's used the plural pronoun in a way that would cause Patsy to have a fit. But maybe it's that Nurse Crane doesn't notice; or maybe it's that she does and thinks nothing of it; or maybe it's that she does, and recognizes what it means, and yet accepts it, accepts them, for what they are. Covertly, Delia glances at her. Nurse Crane is unreadable.

As they turn the corner into Delia's street, it turns out that Nurse Crane's acts of kindness for the day are not yet done. She glances at her watch, and asks, "Will Nurse Mount be ready for work by now? I might as well give her a lift too, since I'm here."

"She ought to be. I'm not sure." What Delia's not really sure about is how Patsy'll react to the offer.

"Well, you just run in and see, and in the mean time I'll be getting the bike out of the back." Nurse Crane's tone brooks no refusal.

Though the door, up the stairs and into the flat, and Delia finds Patsy in their bedroom, finishing up her hair.

"Hello, you," Patsy smiles into the mirror, as Delia's arms come round her, as Delia kisses her on the cheek. Patsy turns her head to turn it into a proper kiss, but after the briefest of moments, Delia pulls away.

"Nurse Crane is downstairs."

"Nurse Crane?"

"And she wants to know if you want a lift to work." Patsy's startled for a moment, so Delia ploughs on before she can object. "And since it's filthy out there, I'm going to go and tell her yes. Put the kettle on - make her a cup of tea? I'll send her up and be back in a few minutes."

Before Patsy can protest or demand explanations, Delia's back down the stairs and out into the snow again. She takes the bike wheel Nurse Crane is holding from her, and sends her up, tells her to make herself at home, and that Patsy's just finishing getting ready and won't be long at all.

Then she sets about dealing with the bike. She hooks the front wheel, precariously, on the handlebar, then wheels it on its remaining wheel through the snow, around the end of the terrace then along the alley behind the houses. It's not an easy job, and she curses more than once or twice in the process, but eventually she reaches their gate, stows the bike in the shed, yawns, and decides that she'll work out how to fix it later.

Back upstairs, Nurse Crane's in the kitchen with a mug of tea, flicking idly through a magazine. There's a pan on the stove with milk warming for Delia's Horlicks (a drink for which Patsy acquired a taste at Nonnatus and is now trying - not entirely successfully - to win Delia to an appreciation of). As Delia's pouring the milk into the mug that Patsy's left out for her, Patsy emerges from the bedroom, her coat and outdoor shoes on. They share the briefest of private glances, before Nurse Crane notices she's there.

"Nurse Mount, are you ready to go?"

Patsy says yes, and Nurse Crane's waving away Delia's thanks for the lift, thanking them for the tea, and, eager to get back to Nonnatus, is on her feet and out of the door.

Patsy trails in her wake, and Delia accompanies her as far as the hallway. She roots among miscellaneous items on the coat rack for a moment before she finds what she's looking for. "Here, take this," she says, looping the scarf round Patsy's neck. "I don't want you catching cold."

Patsy ducks her head to kiss her, and then heads off out into the snow.

Delia finishes her Horlicks and goes to bed.


	6. Sergeant Noakes

The lights of the community centre are blazing brightly, but such is the frenzy of activity inside that the windows are fogged up with the heat when Delia pulls up outside. There's a cluster of Nonatus bikes at the corner of the building, and she finds a spot to park her own - next to Patsy's, naturally. Just as she's turning to head into the hall there's a creak of hinges that need oiling followed by the muffled thudding shut of a door; the patter of youthful feet on concrete; another muffled thud, of a different texture this time; and then, after the inevitable moment of quiet while shocked child registers impact on hard surface, a wail of pain.

Delia winces in sympathy, and hurries towards the child - a young boy, six or seven years old, though she's not sure whether she recognizes him as one of Patsy's cubs. Kindly, efficiently, she picks him up and inspects the damage. Trousers have born the brunt of the impact, but there's torn skin on one knee; gravel has impacted into both palms. Nothing obviously worse than that, though the child is snivelling heartily. There's a first aid box in the kitchen of the community centre, Delia remembers (untold supplies from the Nonnatus clinic in there too, she'd wager, but she'd rather not needlessly provoke the wrath of Sister Evangelina by poking round in the stores) so, quietening the kid's sobs with a mint imperial she fishes from her pocket, she takes him in to patch him up with a spot of antiseptic cream and a plaster.

* * *

"Oh hello! Making yourself busy I see." Delia doesn't turn at the familiar voice, but, bent forward over the child's knee as she smooths down sticking plaster, tries unsuccessfully to contain the smile that rises across her features. "Oh, Sam, you have been in the wars," that voice continues, as its green-clad owner leans in to inspect Delia's handiwork. "But you're in the very best of hands with Nurse Busby."

Delia grins up at Patsy, nodding at the compliment. But becoming, all of a sudden, the focus of another adult's sympathy is a bit much for Sam and he starts to snuffle and whimper again.

Immediately, Delia's attention is back with her patient. "Now then, Sam," she says gently to the child. "You're a brave boy, aren't you?"

He nods, and whether it's the murmured reassurances that Delia makes or the mint imperial that he snatches hastily from her outstretched hand, or whether it's the rising cacophony of fun being had that bursts into the kitchen making him realize what he's missing out on - whether it's one of these reasons or a combination of all of them - within a minute or so, once Delia's blown his nose again for him, Sam's up and off and lost in the maelstrom of activity.

"Good work, Nurse Busby."

"Thank you, Nurse Mount."

They smile broadly at each other for a moment, before Delia makes a move to the sink to wash her hands. While she's busy, Patsy repacks the first-aid kid back into its little box, makes a mental note to get some extra plasters and ointment from the store, and says, "How was your day?"

"Mmm, so-so. Much better for seeing you." Delia's barely seen Patsy this week, what with their respective shifts, with Patsy putting in her regular evening stint at Cubs, Delia her evening at the St John's Ambulance, and with rehearsals for the Christmas play crammed into to any spare moment. She doesn't really want to complain, though, but it's a reminder of how thoroughly they've settled into life in the flat. Just a month or so, a few snatched moments like this would often be all they had to look forward to after a week of longing. Now, as much as she's missed spending her evenings with Patsy this week, she gets to go home with her. To share her bed with her. It's remarkable, really.

"I'm glad you could come," Patsy replies. They've both felt the absence of the other.

Hands now dry, Delia turns to Patsy, to take her in properly for the first time this evening.

"Come here, you," she says, "your woggle's not straight."

It's not really crooked, but it's the excuse they need to stand close. Patsy steps towards her and Delia reaches up to fix the (ever-so-slightly) wayward neckerchief. She doesn't miss the opportunity to briefly reach up and caress Patsy's cheek; Patsy's eyelids flutter shut at the contact. Despite herself, she can't help but lean into it.

"Whatever would I do without you?"

"I don't know, Pats."

They stand like that as long as they dare, though it's not long enough for either of them. Patsy - again, despite herself - is the first to stiffen into awkwardness.

Delia covers her own discomfort at Patsy's discomfort with brisk efficiency. And with words that might be construed as innuendo, if Patsy is so inclined. "So, Pats, where do you want me?"

Patsy gives her a look that's part-amused, part-disapproving. Delia dips her head to one side and smirks. The words were taken as intended.

To the untrained eye, the scene in the main hall is chaos. Baby Jesus has gone missing (Nurse Crane will have the shock of her life in the next day's clinic when she finds him taking a bath in one of the toilets) and Mary and Joseph are pulling gruesome faces at each other. Two of the wise men are hitting the third with their tea-towel-headdresses. Sheep are fraternizing indiscriminately with reindeers, and the camel has got the hump and gone off to sulk in the corner. Nurse Gilbert and Timothy Turner appear to be having cross words at the piano. And Nurse Noakes is surrounded by an assortment of under-6s who, it appears, she's trying to teach to be Christmas puddings.

Surveying pandemonium, Patsy spots a possibility.

"How about craft corner?"

In a relatively quiet corner of the room, Sergeant Noakes is working with a zen-like intensity on what appears to be an interminable paper chain.

"Really, Pats?"

"The reindeers need horns."

"Mightn't I be more use herding sheep?"

"Trixie's got that under control." A sheep hurtles by at pace, Trixie in relatively close pursuit. "Well, sort of."

"You have told the expectant mothers of Poplar that none of them are allowed to give birth today since all the midwives in the district are currently moonlighting in the entertainment business?"

"Oh yes," Patsy looks at her solemnly. "Sister Evangelina sent them a letter telling them all to cross their legs and hold tight until after the show on Saturday."

* * *

It takes Delia a good quarter of an hour to construct the first prototype set of antlers. With cardboard and pipe-cleaners attached to a headband, she corrals one of the sheep (an escapee from the main flock who's playing under a chair near craft corner) to act as a model so she can make sure that she's got the angles right. But, it turns out, seven-year-old sheep aren't the easiest models to control, and with her stock of mint imperials running empty, she's forced to let her run free.

At which point Sergeant Noakes offers to be the antler model, if she'd like.

Sergeant Noakes is not quite as twitchy as a seven-year-old, nor does he need to be bribed with sweets. He's actually rather patient; shyly (or proudly, Delia's not sure which) he confesses that nearly every year he's had to do the same job for his wife - mainly for donkey ears, so reindeer antlers make a nice change.

When Patsy strolls over an hour or so later there's a small forest of antlers on the table, and a pair on Sergeant Noakes's head.

"Hidden talents, Deels."

Delia slaps her hand away from the pile.

"Careful Pats! The glue's not dry."

"Here, Nurse Mount," Sergeant Noakes says, gingerly pulling the antlers from his head. "Try these on for size."

Patsy does; Delia laughs so hard she almost falls off her chair.

* * *

Two days later and Delia's out of breath and sticky with sweat when she reaches the community centre. She'd had her eye on the clock for at least the last hour of her shift, but, wouldn't you know it, at exactly five minutes to clocking-off time Matron had cornered her, with a lengthy list of instructions that Delia'll need to attend to when she's back in work on Monday. Finally breaking loose from Matron's office after quarter of an hour, Delia had hurried to change and leapt on her bike, covering the ground between the hospital and the community centre in record time. And just in time, too, it seems.

Trixie, doing front-of-house duty in the foyer waves her through to the merrily decorated hall. "Cutting it a bit fine," she says, following Delia through the door, and Delia's about to explain about being delayed at work. But there's the sound of clapping from the front of the hall, and Tom Hereward's on stage, calling everyone to order and urging them to take their seats. Trixie guides Delia over to the side of the room where there's a spare seat next to Sergeant Noakes and Mrs Buckle. They welcome her with friendly greetings, and as she sinks down on the chair, the lights dim and the show begins.

An unbiased observer wouldn't claim the performance to be an unmitigated success: lines are forgotten, entrances missed, the camel thumps Rudolph, and Sergeant Noakes' paper chain falls from the ceiling onto Sister Evangelina's head - but it is what it is: an enthusiastic community show. The songs are sung with gusto, Fred nearly puts his back out so vigorous is his ho-ho-hoing, and there's a standing ovation at the end, just because (and is there any better reason?) almost everyone in the audience is connected to someone who has performed on stage.

That sense of connection pulls at Delia as she's on her feet to applaud as Patsy and the rest of the team from Nonnatus follow the children onto the stage to receive their share of the acclaim. As Delia stands there, her pride in her partner as evident in her face as Peter's is in his face, or Violet's is in hers - as Delia stands there, alongside the other Nonnatus plus-ones, she feels a genuine sense of belonging. Whatever they think (or don't think) is going on between herself and Patsy, she feels accepted by these people. Part of their community. Part of their family, even.

On stage, Fred, Chummy, and Patsy take a bow.

From the back of the hall Violet, Peter, and Delia cheer and clap and stamp and whistle.


End file.
